CNET News Video: 'Star Trek' tricorder becomes reality

CNET News Video: 'Star Trek' tricorder becomes reality

2:41 /
July 17, 2013

Decades after "Star Trek" made famous the small scanning device that could read your vital signs, the medical tricorder is now ready for prime time. The Scanadu can take everything from your heart rate to your blood pressure to your temperature in just 10 seconds. CNET's Kara Tsuboi shows us how it works and why the creator wanted to put medicine into the hands of patients.

-The hard [unk] this time.
-The medical tricorder that could scan your body for vital signs has gone from science fiction to science fact.
-They were very much alive.
-This small device called the Scanadu, along with an competing smartphone app.
It can read your vitals in 10 seconds with what the company says is 95 percent accuracy.
-[unk] perfect-- perfect health.
We have like a whole
range of things that you could actually measure.
But the most important are the vital signs and so these are temperature, a blood pressure, respiratory rates, oxygenation and heart rates.
-The Scanadu works by holding the device up to your temple.
-We form electrical circuits in the body.
You have the pulse, you have the heart rate, you have here the temperature and everything happens in this movement.
The device goes
over 10 times.
It's not in 10 seconds [unk] to wait.
It goes over there every second and then actually takes like the best readings you can have.
-Creator Walter de Brouwer came up with the idea after an accident put his son in the hospital for a year.
He initially intended for the device to help other parents.
But the applications could be far reaching especially if the device gets FDA approval and can be used by doctors.
-In this entirety the tricorder should be a complete hospital, you know, very
small device.
-Scanadu is also developing disposable urine test that could detect a variety of conditions including abnormal glucose levels, liver and kidney problems and even track your pregnancy.
De Brouwer hopes by putting some medical information literally in the hands of patients, it will improve the quality and availability of health care and the doctor-patient relationship.
-The most under used resource in medicine is the patient.
I think then we are on the right path if we have like a real conversation with your doctors,
where we keep all the information and give it to them.
And give it to them in an actionable format.
-It's been a sort of dream come true for the Star Trek fan, who recently met with the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
-They never have faults that's abrupt out of a science fiction series would one day probably disrupt the complete health care system.
-Currently, you can only pre-order the device for $199 to the company's Indiegogo Fund
Raising Campaign.
The device is set to ship in March 2014.
In San Francisco, I'm Kara Tsuboi, cnet.com for CBS News.